Safari – Open jnlp Files Not Download Them

Problem

Next to the rise of Nazism, war, hunger, and pestilence Java is the worstÂ hing to happen to humankind! But because people keep using it for management consoles and things we are stuck with it.

I’m particularly a big fan of the way they (Oracle) upgrade it because it’s got some huge security flaw in it, then all my remote iLO, DRAC and Cisco ASDM sessions don’t work anymore. It’s even better when the device that launches Java is old and not supported so I can’t upgrade that either, So I have to maintain a VM with an old version of Java just to do my job.

So this week after I stupidly hit the ‘update’ button I had to downgrade Java ‘again’. Seriously just put in a button that says, “You need to click this button for things to work but tough luck if it all breaks”, and was on the brink of being able to get back to work, when Safari decided to download the java file and not run it, (which is not normally the end of the world, but was the straw that broke the camels back!)

Solution

When the .jnlp file has downloaded once, go and find it > Right click (or cmd click) > Open With > Other.